Smithsonite (classic old Ireland locale)

Item Description

Two generations of intergrown, translucent, waxy luster, bubbly botryoids of straw-yellow cadmium-rich smithsonite fill a sculptural vug on this above average sized, showy, classic and desirable old-timer from this extinct small Irish zinc deposit worked in about 1862-63 (MINDAT). The hefty vuggy sawed base is massive gray smithsonite. Mined for the sphalerite, the smithsonite was originally left on the spoil mounds as gangue material! We almost never see these for sale today! Pieces like this were said to be collected in remining of the dumps in the 1960s and 1970s, but few are to be found today.